socialmediocrity

I feel compelled to take the time to acknowledge my erstwhile colleague for pointing out the “0″ in 2.0 is in fact a zero.

Thank you, Ben, for putting the “oh” firmly back in zero.

Through extensive use of the Facebook ad platform, and no small amount of chance, I stumbled upon (not literally) the fact that Facebook have slipped another targeting feature in to their ad platform.

The public platform is suggesting that we you now target users by their job description. Which of course could be something of a boon to B2B advertisers, and a distinct advantage to recruitment advertisers of course. The phrases have begun appearing in the keywords

I’m not sure it will be enough to reverse the CPM decline the ad proliferation has caused, and especially not in this climate, but definitely a positive move. And like dynamite, it can benefit users and advertisers and Facebook alike, as long as it is used responsibly. Facebook themselves will need to maintain their vigilance, and avoid any temptations to allow it to be exploited harmfully.

And of course it is not only B2B advertisers that stand to gain. It is probably the greatest indicator of an individuals income level too, which makes the targeted groups all the more interesting to more niche and high-end advertisers.

The platform will begin to get very interesting when Facebook begin to separate some of these targeting variables, and we can begin to genuinely micro-target users based on multiple interests, job titles, and fan page affiliation.

So I noticed this morning that a third ad placement has appeared, as if by magic, on the right hand side of Facebook pages.

This is odd for two reasons.

Firstly, I wasn’t aware they were selling out anyway, so I don’t entirely understand the push to generate more ad positions just yet. If anything this will put more over-supply into the Facebook ad inventory micro-climate, and push CPMs down even lower than they are at the moment (if you use the public platform that is). So it doesn’t necessarily offer any good news for Facebook themselves.

Secondly, it is of course bad news for advertisers – which can only mean dowward pressure on…..you guessed it…..CPMs. Why is it bad news for advertisers? Of course one argument would be that cheaper ad space should be good news but now that, for want of a better phrase, each advertisers’ “share of voice” on the page is reduced then we can expect response rates to drop. Heck, for most advertisers, and especially those that aren’t micro-targeting, they’re pretty low already.

So the barrel seems firmly aimed at the toes on this one – hopefully they’re still trying to decide whether to pull the trigger just yet. I would expect them to wait until demand is sufficiently high, but perhaps the need for revenue, or at least the need to be seen to be maximising revenue, is greater.

This is socialmediocrity.

A very mediocre blog post.

Distinctly average, or below average.

It is neither big, nor clever.

And no-one has bothered commenting on it. Who could blame them?